GreenShopper company questions:
What is greenshopper.com?
What is a green shopper?
How does buying green help solve environmental problems?
What are some of the exact environmental problems
that buying green solves?
I've heard it cost more to buy green products, is
this true?
When was GreenShopper formed?
Does GreenShopper donate to the environment?
If GreenShopper is not a non-profit, why does it
accept donations?
What political party does GreenShopper support?
Ordering Questions for the Buy Online section:
How is Amazon involved with greenshopper.com?
Is online shopping good for the environment?
Is the packaging that the products are shipped
in recyclable?
When I am done filling my shopping cart, why do I leave the site when
placing the order?
Do I need a GreenShopper account or an Amazon account
to place an order?
What if I don't have an Amazon account?
Would it be cheaper to shop directly through Amazon?
What type of support do I get after I place an order?
How do I reduce my shipping costs?
Where do my products ship from?
Why do some products have a price range rather than
just one price?
What determines whether products are eligible
for FREE Super Saver Shipping?
Is it safe to order online with GreenShopper?
Product Questions for the Buy Online section:
Are any of your products fair trade as well?
Does GreenShopper have a catalog by mail?
How do you determine if a product is green or
not?
Are all of your products made by companies who are
environmentally friendly?
What does it mean when the item is "currently
unavailable"?
How do we know which products are on sale?
I'm a business owner who has green products to
sell, can I sell my products through GreenShopper?
Miscellaneous Questions:
I have more questions, who do I ask?
GreenShopper company questions:
Greenshopper.com is a one-stop shopping community
where you can buy environmentally responsible products online, or find
a referral to a local supplier that has the green good you need.
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A green shopper is someone who seeks to buy products
that are environmentally responsible and sustainable.
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Every time we open our wallets, we are essentially supporting the company
that made the product and the companies that made the materials that made
the product. In many ways, this is more powerful than voting on election
day. Through their manufacturing and disposing, many of the products we
buy pollute the diverse eco-systems on which our lives depend. It is from
these ecosystems that we get our air, water, food, and medicine –
all aspects of our life. By buying green, we not only protect these ecosystems
with our purchase, we expand the reach of the green movement, pushing
it toward becoming the mainstream, and continuing to protect our home.
Every purchase of a green product or service increases the demand for
that product, making it more appealing for other companies to produce
a similar, sustainable product.
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Global Warming, Soil Erosion, Toxic Chemicals,
Clean Water, Biodiversity, Atmospheric Gases, Deforestation, Clean Air,
Pollution, Habitat Destruction, Wild Food Sources, to name a few.
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This question has 3 answers:
1. Sometimes yes:
From a strictly monetary standpoint from the pocket book / wallet of the
consumer, there are times when purchasing the environmentally friendly
version of a product can be more expensive. An example is organic food
or organic cotton clothing - it is often sold at a higher price because
it costs more for a farm to operate under organic regulations. Also, many
products will appear more costly because the up front cost is higher -
but over time it ends up often being significantly cheaper. Examples of
this include solar panels, rechargeable batteries, compact fluorescent
light bulbs, or non-disposable products, etc. The up front costs can be
higher, but the long term savings are immense. Often times the break even
point is only several months.
2. Sometimes no:
Many green products cost the same or less. For example, a low-flow shower
head costs the same or less than a regular shower head.
3. Never: If
you factor in all external costs of a product, a non-green product ALWAYS
costs more because of its harmful effects on the environment or natural
resources.
Remember, the more people who
demand green products, the cheaper they will become. And don't forget,
if the product costs more, it is only because it costs more to produce
it in an environmentally responsible way. Companies operate within a very
competitive market where consumers demand the lowest cost. In order to
provide the lowest cost, many companies will sacrifice our environment
in order to meet that demand. By not purchasing a green product because
it is more expensive, you’re basing your actions on the same principle
as these harmful companies – the financial bottom line. When you
buy green products, you are basing your actions on the same principle
as the green company, the environmentally friendly bottom line.
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2006.
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Besides working with only green products and linking
up green companies, we donate 10% of all profits to various environmental
organizations. Here is the exciting part, our long term vision is to have
this site donate much of it's profits to the environment... picture a
self running company (greenshopper) that survives only by green consumers
buying green products from green companies with profits going to green
environmental organizations...not bad! It's like recycling your dollars
throughout the green community. Each month we will focus on an
environmental issue and 10% of that month's profits will be donated to
various environmental organizations that are working towards sustainable
solutions to the issue we are focusing on that month. The home page will
always explain which environmental issue our profits will support.
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In order to prevent environmental destruction,
we need to get as many people supporting green products as possible. Donation
money supports marketing initiatives that expose more people to the site.
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At GreenShopper, we support policies that put the
environment first. As a company, GreenShopper does not openly support any
political party. The environment should not be a partisan political issue,
as it doesn't matter if you are a democrat, republican, independent, green
party, etc - we all have to have a habitable planet to even be able to discuss
politics in the first place!
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Ordering questions:
In order to sell green products from small and
large companies alike in our Buy Online section, we have utilized Amazon's
vast relationships and advanced ordering system to provide the general
population with the most efficient way to order green products.
We are an affiliate of Amazon.
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It has been estimated that Amazon.com uses 1/16
the amount of energy as other companies because products are shipped straight
to people's homes directly from the products manufacturing plant or warehouse.
Ordering online is like taking a bus, your package is sent to you on a
truck that is headed down your street anyways. When you get in your car,
you burn CO2 to buy a product that was shipped to a store that also burned
a lot of CO2 to receive and store the product. (However, for certain items
that are produced locally in your town such as organic foods or crafts
- it is much better to purchase locally.) "Buying local" from
a store that carries nothing but products manufactured far away is not
buying local - you are better off ordering online.
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Absolutely. Click
here to read all about it and how to recycle all of the packaging.
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It will leave the site in order to utilize Amazon's
shopping cart. Amazon utilizes a very efficient ordering process and it
can help reduce your shipping costs.
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You will use your Amazon account. If you don't
have one, you can sign up for one at checkout, it's very simple. In the
future, we will have GreenShopper accounts to store favorites and create
wish lists and so forth, but all orders will continue to be placed through
Amazon.
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When you check out, you can sign up for one if
you want to. It's very simple.
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No. The prices show on the product pages are the
same exact prices as charged on Amazon. There are absolutely no additional
charges for shopping through GreenShopper.
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Our goal is provide a first-rate shopping experience
and you will receive world-class, 24-hour support. Once the order is placed
through Amazon, you have access to their 24-hour
customer service (by phone it's 1-866-216-1075) as well as
a safe shopping guarantee. If you have any problems while using the
greenshopper.com website, please immediately e-mail support@greenshopper.com
and your problem will be resolved promptly.
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By ordering products through the same company,
you will reduce your shipping costs. When searching products at greenshopper.com
it is easy to locate where each product ships from. The company will either
show up with the initial product description or by clicking on the product
and getting redirecting to the product's page itself. Many times it's
free shipping over a certain dollar amount, and when the product or products
ship directly from Amazon, free shipping usually applies on all orders
over $25. Also, with gas at $2-$3 per gallon, it is cheaper to pay for
the shipping costs and it is usually better for the environment to order
online.
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Just like when you are ordering through Amazon,
your products will ship from various companies. Many products are sold
directly from Amazon's warehouse, but others ship from various companies.
These companies will always be listed on the product page. However your
order is always processed through this one website, making it very convenient.
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At GreenShopper, we strive to give you
the lowest price possible on all products. Through Amazon's marketplace,
you can often buy items used or from competing sellers, thus giving you
the lowest price possible. The environmental benefits of buying used are
obvious, re-using a product is much better than recycling it. Once the
product is added to your cart, you will see a price assigned to it which
will be the lowest price with positive seller's ratings. You can click
on the product title once you get to Amazon's page and change sellers
if you wish to do so. Also, a price range may reflect multiple style attributes
for a product (for example, a large shirt may be more expensive than a
small shirt).
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Products that are shipped directly from
Amazon (and not from a third party) are usually eligible for free shipping
as long as the order is for $25 or more. This is a great way to save on
shipping costs!
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Yes! GreenShopper does not collect any
credit card information or banking information - that is all taken care
of through Amazon when you click "Proceed To Check Out." Amazon
is one of the safest online shopping places on the web.
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Product Questions:
Yes, many of them are. Fortunately, many of the
companies who are environmentally friendly also share a concern for their
workers (such as their health, wages and working conditions). GreenShopper
products are environmentally friendly as our main concern is the environment.
However, fair trade is an issue that is VERY important to us and over
the next couple of months we are hoping to make it possible for users
to search only the products that are both environmentally friendly and
also fair trade. Unfortunately, if a product is fair trade, but not environmentally
friendly, we cannot include it on our site. We don't consider a company
to be fair trade unless it is environmentally sustainable.
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No. We have debated this for some time but we feel
that even by using 100% recycled paper with soy based ink, it's just not
worth it. We feel that online catalogs, magazines, and newspapers are
much better for the environment.
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We have often wanted to come up with a list of
criteria that makes a product green, but it's very difficult because we
have almost 1,000 different categories of products (and the list grows
daily). For example, we focus on products made from pesticide-free sustainable
materials, such as organic cotton, bamboo, hemp, recycled, etc materials.
However, we also include products that reduce your energy consumption,
such as CFL light bulbs and weatherization products. A light bulb by itself
is not necessarily made from sustainable materials, but it reduces our
coal burning fossil fuel consumption and is the best current green
alternative. The bottom line is that any products you find on this
website will be the best current green alternative that we could find
and as new technologies replace old ones, we update the inventory accordingly.
Lastly, the product selection is also self governing. We individually
select every single product on this site (we don't use a computerized
search function which will surely return non-green products). With over
16,000 products, there may be a few non-green products that slip through
our criteria, so we rely on you, our online green community to report
this.
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We currently offer all available products from
over 400 companies who devote their entire product line and business model
to environmentally friendly offerings. There are also many environmentally
friendly products sold from companies that aren't so environmentally friendly.
Many times they are just reselling green products from green companies
and we feel that we need to support green products no matter what company
sells them. As consumer demand increases, as it currently is, companies
who aren't completely green, will follow the demand and become completely
green. We support that. For example, we don't support many of Walmart's
practices, but we support Walmart carrying green products made from green
companies and would be happy to sell them through this site (if the option
were available).
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It means that it is either temporarily or sometimes
permanently out of stock. Hopefully it's because there is such a high
demand for green products!
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With tens of thousands of products listed, there are thousands of sales
going on all of the time. As you peruse the products, you will see that
many of them have a "Sale Price" listed and they will indicate
how much you are saving.
Yes. Please see this page
for all necessary details.
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Miscellaneous Questions:
Please submit your questions to info@greenshopper.com.
We encourage any type of questions that you might have and we will respond
in a timely fashion.
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